The 32-Year-Old Tasked With Making Legal Weed Work Queens native Christopher Alexander is building the market from scratch.

Toward the end of July, around 40 people gathered at the Black Spectrum Theatre in Queens to voluntarily sit through a PowerPoint presentation. It was part of a public forum organized by the Office of Cannabis Management, the state regulatory body created in September 2021 to usher in the era of legalized recreational weed in New York. This was an exciting time — after decades of prohibition, New York had joined a number of states that have legalized marijuana sales and consumption, putting an end to the criminalization that had disproportionately impacted Black and Latinx communities. The new law, signed in March 2021, promised not only a legal weed market but a centering of those who had suffered the brunt of prohibition’s penalties. If those in the audience that day met the requirements and judiciously completed their paperwork, they could hope to receive one of the first 175 licenses to be granted in the coming year. All of this was in the PowerPoint.

Presiding over this meeting was Chris Alexander, the bill’s architect and the executive director of OCM. The Hollis native was dressed to project polished but relaxed, serious but approachable, in a purple gingham dress shirt with the sleeves partially rolled up, fitted navy slacks but no blazer, an inconspicuous yet elegant rectangle-dial watch, and an enviably fresh haircut and shave with a smart goatee. Roy Wilkins Park, where we met to talk before the presentation, is basically his backyard; he recently purchased a home nearby. “This is where I’m from,” he said. “The police presence was always there. Even if it’s not full arrest, it’s the ‘What are you doing? Where are you going? Where are you coming from?’” [Read More @ NY Magazine]